


Thicker Than Water

by monochromatic



Series: Bellamy's Gospel [2]
Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-01
Updated: 2014-11-01
Packaged: 2018-02-23 13:32:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2549324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monochromatic/pseuds/monochromatic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Audric reconciles with his older sister.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thicker Than Water

The Imperial City was nothing like Daggerfall, nothing like Wayrest. It sprawled, but methodically, like so many colonies of ants, going about their tiny, homogenous lives. Elle gazed out the window of her carriage and looked on with uncertainty, and at times disdain. But, by virtue of blood, these were her people, for they were her brother’s people, too.   
  
The White-Gold Tower loomed ominously overhead as they passed. Its shadow bore down, long upon the ground like law. She wondered: was her brother’s law just? Was it fair? Was it all-encompassing? It was difficult to imagine him upholding anything so staunch and proper.   
  
The new palace had been built upon a hill, so that it overlooked the entirety of the city. Alabaster shimmered in the evening sun, and the windows reflected the blinding, red light. The slope was pristine and orderly, not at all the kind of thing she would have imagined him liking; but then, there was so much about this that didn’t make sense that it seemed pointless to be dismissive.  
  
Elle was escorted out of her carriage and up the neat paths, into the palace. The front hall echoed with her arrival: the bustle of coats being removed and courtesies being exchanged echoed off the tiled walls. The vaulted ceilings caught the light and it bounced off of mosaics made from mirrors, the light bowing gracefully for all who passed beneath it.  
  
She couldn’t help that suspect that this place was designed big, so that one’s footsteps sounded small.  
  
“His Imperial Majesty is not at court right now,” said a footman at the door, “and would prefer to entertain you in the gardens.”  
  
“Well, that does sound preferable.” Elle was unnerved by all of this. The entire trip had seemed surreal, as if she would wake from a foolish dream. But in a pocket, she still had the invitation, written in her brother’s handwriting and delivered on fine parchment.   
  
The halls were long and wide and tall, immaculately white and trimmed in gold; the floors were polished so that you could see your own reflection in them. The windows, which stretched from floor to ceiling, resembled the ones in the childhood home she still visited. This palace was as Breton as it was Imperial, and in some deep corner of her heart, it pleased her.  
  
She was led out to a sunny terrace. And on that terrace, there was a table set for three. Audric had already tucked into his food, but waved a welcoming arm at one of the empty places. “I took the liberty of ordering your food for you, Elle,” he smiled. “I hope you don’t mind.”  
  
“It’s no trouble.”  
  
They sat across from one another and ate, and for a few, sweet moments, it was almost as if nothing had changed between them. But it was impossible to ignore what had changed. Her little brother was not the round-faced sixteen-year-old that she remembered: lines had sprouted at the corners of his eyes, and the look of him was less ignorant. This was not the callow boy she and their father had sent running from the estate.   
  
When Audric was finished, he crossed his silverware on the edge of his plate, and it was taken away. The custom struck her as odd, but she made note to observe it, when it was her turn. “Armelle, it has been a very, very long time.” Turning his eyes down, he said, “I’ve missed you.”  
  
She had nothing to say, yet.  
  
“I brought you into the garden because I thought it would be an apropos place to meet. We used to collect plants together, after all. I have a lot to thank you for” He watched her finish her meal. “I think that’s why your betrayal hurt so much.”  
  
“I never saw it that way,” Elle defended herself. “I still don’t; what you did was wrong, and selfish.” It was difficult to keep her tone even, but she did try.  
  
“Stealing from our family was wrong,” Audric conceded, “and the faith I’d placed in my friends was wrong, too. But, I don’t know if it was as wrong as inviting children into a discussion about disowning a family member.”

And she couldn’t contest that, really; it wasn’t an attack on her person so much as an observation of fact. When the entire incident had taken place, she was only just into her adult years, but even then, it had left a sour taste in her mouth. “Well you know how father is,” she said, taking a drink; the water sparkled, and tasted like fresh fruit despite being clear as day.  
  
“Is he still?” he asked cryptically.  
  
After a moment, Elle realized what he was asking. “Yes, he is. Still at home, with Mother.”   
Audric pondered this solemnly for a while, swilling his drink in its flute. “I suppose I’m glad that Mother isn’t a widow, yet, then.”  
  
At that moment, a woman strolled onto the terrace, two small children trailing noisily after her. Both boys, they yipped and screeched until they noticed there was company. Then they stood quite still and held their tongues, and inched further and further behind Audric. These little boys, Elle realized suddenly and with shock, were Audric’s sons.  
  
“Auriel, Paladin,” he encouraged them forward, “this is your Aunt Elle.”  
  
“Hello Aunt Elle,” they chimed in unison. The littlest could be no more than four.   
  
“Hello,” she greeted them warily, as if they might scare.   
  
“And I’m Serana,” the woman introduced herself; she was fair and her dark hair tumbled over slim shoulders. “I’m Audric’s wife.”  
  
Understanding the meaning of this, Elle tipped her head respectfully. “My lady.”  
  
Her laugh was like the low toll of bells in the night. “Oh there’s no need for that here.”  
  
“And why not?” Audric asked. “I think it’s only appropriate.” His mouth was a hard line, and Serana massaged his hand, soothing him.  
  
The children ran off to play in the garden, oblivious.   
  
At last, Elle found words. “Have you summoned me all the way from High Rock only to abuse me then,” she asked. “To have your requital, at last?”  
  
His mouth turned up in a crooked smirk. “Not entirely.” He asked his wife if she would sit with them, but she chose to tend to the children, leaving estranged brother and sister to stew. “I’ve asked you here because I have a proposition for you, and I didn’t want to afford you the opportunity to brush me off.”  
  
Elle sat back in her chair and nearly huffed. “After all that and now you want to make me an offer?”   
  
“Yes.”  
  
The birds trilled in the trees and the sunlight illuminated the lime avenues; there was a trickle of water somewhere unseen, and copper chimes jingled from above.   
  
“I hear you’re doing well for yourself in Daggerfall,” he said. “Ancelin told me, in case you were wondering.”  
  
“Ah yes, our cousin, whom you made Queen after the scuffle with the states.”  
  
“I’d hardly call it a scuffle,” he frowned. “All those lives wasted, and to protect what? The right for High Rock to continue cutting itself to pieces? Daggerfall didn’t come down easy,” he smiled.   
  
She puffed up with pride.  
  
“Which is why I asked you here.” Gazing aimlessly away, he murmured, “I’m not finished with Tamriel. There are still matters to settle, and though I’d like to settle them peaceably, I can’t always get what I want.”  
  
“What are you getting at, Audric?”  
  
A genuine smile washed over his face. “I forgive you, Elle. I forgave you some time ago, I think. And I want you in my life – in the life of my children.”  
  
“And in the life of your politics, no doubt,” she frowned, unimpressed with this display.  
  
“That might also be true.”  
  
When his contrite silence stretched on into discomfort, she asked, “So what is this proposition of yours?”  
  
He considered it, perhaps trying to puzzle out the best possible phrasing. She remembered him being excellent with words. “I’ve been keeping my ears – and my mind – open, and I would like to put forth the invitation for you to join my court, as my Battlemage.”

Elle was dumbstruck by the offer, and before she could say as much, another little one came hurtling out onto the patio. This one was taller, leaner, and a girl. “Daddy, Daddy!” she cried angrily, taking no notice of Elle. “Amir is going out and won’t let me come with him! He said I’m too small and I’ll just get in the way! Tell him it isn’t true!” She was bold and brazen, not at all like her father when he was her age.  
  
Sparing his sister an apologetic look, Audric turned to deal with his child. “Did he say where he was going?”   
  
Elle wondered at the patience in this man she was supposed to call brother.  
  
“No, just out,” she pouted.  
  
Knowingly, he smirked. “Well, you are too small to go with him. But Tiberia, I’m sure you wouldn’t get in the way. I’m sure Amir is just worried you’ll steal all the glory.” He grinned at this little girl; clearly, she was the light of his life.  
  
“Tiberia?” Elle raised her eyebrows.   
  
“My oldest, with Serana” Audric explained proudly. “Everything I work toward is to go to her.”  
  
But Tiberia didn’t appear to be paying attention; she was eyeing her younger brothers with contempt as much as with half a mind to join them. She ran off and quickly instigated a tussle with Auriel, who was fast, but not fast enough.   
  
“With a name like hers, I presume you mean to put her on the throne when you’re gone?”  
  
“Absolutely.” Audric stared her down, as he did his councilmen every time this came up in discussion.   
  
“I’m sure the public’s had a riotous good time with that.”  
  
“I don’t care what they think. But what about you, hm? Will you consider my offer, come stay with my family? Be part of it, again?”  
  
“Audric, we haven’t seen one another in…” she counted, “forty years. Why extend an olive branch now?”  
  
He showed his age in his eyes, tired and sympathetic. He shrugged, his fine robes moving about his shoulders like liquid. “As I’ve said, I miss you. But you needn’t take the position if it doesn’t suit you; I only wanted to offer the opportunity.”  
  
She gazed at her brother as he looked on at his children, at his wife. He had children. He’d  _married_. There was so much she did not know, so much she wished to ask, and so much she was afraid of. And this would be an excellent position, for her career. Imperial Battlemage, she thought. To the Emperor. To my Audric. She had not thought of him that way in a very long time. Not since he was small and she had taken him through the fields outside of Wayrest to pick flowers and herbs.   
  
“I’ll consider it,” she said. “I’ll stay a while, and I’ll consider it.”  
  
Audric smiled, genuine and grateful. “I’m so glad you’ll stay,” he said, then turned to his wife. “Serana!” he called. “Whatever shall we have for dinner, with dearest Elle this evening?”  
  
His voice rang so boldly since she’d last heard him speak. He sat straighter, moved more gracefully. His face had grown handsome and he was much better kept. Most of all, the way he looked at people had changed: she remembered an angry, selfish boy, who only saw justice where it suited him. Now, she saw a man who loved his family, and perhaps whose mercy extended out into the streets of his subjects.   
  
“We forge our own families, you know,” he murmured across the table, his eyes not quite fixed on her. “Though, blood can certainly motivate a person, even after decades of separation.”  
  
“I don’t regret my decision,” she said softly, and it was true. “But please know that I am sorry for the loss of you all these years.”  
  
Nodding, Audric said, “Well, the years don’t need to stretch on. But you go ahead. Consider it.”  
  
And so she would. Elle would sit down to dinner with her little brother and his family; she would sleep in his palace and marvel at his court and sit in on his hearings; she would play in the gardens with his children, and teach them the names of the flowers and the fungi, just as she had taught Audric.  
  
And she would consider it.

**Author's Note:**

> From a prompt on the meme, calling for authors to talk about their Dragonborn's family.


End file.
